IT SOUNDED like a battle cry in the first foodie war. ''Sebastian, stir the soup, lay the tables and for god's sake activate the almonds!''

But it was not. Instead, ''activated almonds'' were just one of the puzzling foods in the diet of My Kitchen Rules chef Pete Evans, listed in the ''My Day on a Plate'' column in Sunday Life magazine. The now-famous nuts joined alkalised water, emu meatballs and ''cultured'' vegetables in Pete's shopping basket essentials.

Twitter went into a frenzy of satire, much of which was very funny, quickly making the hashtag ''activated almonds'' the number one trending topic (for the record, they are almonds that have been soaked in water to bring them to germination).

You have to feel a little sorry for Evans - he's hardly the first foodie to lean to pretentious. But the volume and vehemence of the ridicule is telling. Satire is corrective, a kind of realignment when things get out of hand. Often it comes from rage, and acts as a salve to it. That's why it feels so good.

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What Evans unwittingly tapped into was people's frustration with how expensive and elitist foodie culture has become. Gone are the days when chicken Kiev or spaghetti marinara were a little bit fancy - these days it's all sous vide, stuffed quail and croquembouche. Saying you're going home to whip up chops and vegies for dinner is as embarrassing as admitting you think you paid too much for your house, that you misread the market and it hasn't appreciated as much as you thought it would. In other words, no one does it.

Similarly, when dining out there is almost always at least one item on the menu that is a mystery, or a cooking technique that sounds like some kind of exotic torture. Then comes that moment when you look across at your dining companions and ask, ''um … what are cultured vegetables?'' only to find that none of them knows either. (Disappointingly, they are not leafy greens that spend their days dabbling in experimental theatre, reading Amis and exuding irony. They're just fermented vegetables.)

The saturation of cooking and food-based ''reality'' shows has exacerbated this. When MasterChef came back on TV earlier this year, it did so with the promise of returning to ''real food, real people'', in response to viewer complaints that it had become too high-fallutin' and inaccessible. It did as it promised and, all things considered, viewers responded well to it.

High-end food can make excellent entertainment: watching the creative, highly technical dishes that chefs conjure up is enjoyable; eating them even more so. But the day-to-day experience of most people is that they want something quick, healthy and affordable to cook. When they have friends to dinner, they want to create a meal that is a bit special, that looks like they've gone to some trouble, but not so special that they spend the hours before their guests' arrival breathing into a brown paper bag. Sometimes people would just like to know how to make a quiche so that the bottom doesn't fall out, or how to cook a roast properly.

At the centre of all this anxiety is the simple fact that food matters so much to us. Dining is a central part of our culture and a thriving industry; cooking is a way to nurture and show love. It stretches far beyond eating's elemental nature. It brings us together, it aids conversation. Sometimes it even takes the place of it. It's also just fun.

There are days when we just don't have the time or the energy to get too fancy with it. After a long day at work, pulling out a recipe that calls for chia seeds or any more than six ingredients can quickly erode what's left of your sense of humour.

And this is all before we get to the myriad, often contradictory health messages about what types of food are best and why. We know that we have a serious, collective weight problem. A recent study revealed that in just 10 years, Victoria's obesity rate had shifted from one in five people to one in four. At the same time, we are exhorted to love our bodies, no matter what their shape or size. When it comes to food, there is now anxiety layered upon anxiety, with a side order of confusion. No wonder we're getting cranky.

We probably think too much about food and eating, risking taking away its innate joy and making it unduly complicated. The response to Evans' inadvertently hilarious intervention felt like something of a correction along those lines. Australians have a great way of doing that.

In the meantime, ''activated almonds'' have entered the popular lexicon and given us all a laugh. After all, rice is nice and cheese will please, but few of us can resist a nuts joke.

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